Are homeschoolers next target of Notley NDP’s “fake” research methods?

Alberta Education Minister David Eggen says he wants to study homeschooled kids, telling the Lethbridge Herald that research needs to be done to determine how well these kids do at the postsecondary level.

Translation? He’s looking for a reason to curb homeschool funding and rein in families that homeschool. Clearly he wants to discourage it as an education choice. We know from Bill 10 that the NDP aren’t fans of parental choice in education.

Based on their history, we can expect a fake survey and a fake fact finding panel to examine homeschooling, much like the activist stacked Oilsands Advisory Group and the fake Climate Leadership survey where the outcome is predetermined with the “research” tailored to the desired result.

Watch as I save Minister Eggen some time and provide him with the facts on outcomes for homeschooled children.

Comments

A reading of the original Lethbridge herald article makes it clear that the concerns are for one or two school districts. This rebel commentary seems to ignore that local context in order to inflame and cause unnecessary distress. Nowhere do I read that the govt wants to curtail home schooling.

SUEDIOTTE ;
Whereas phrases like ‘femi-nazi’, ‘homosexual mafia’, ‘Jihadi-Justin’, etc. are all excellent descriptors, a more effective way to combat the left and their dangerous delusions than using righteous anger, is the use of ridicule and contempt.
“Femi-ninnies” fits that bill very well…

I do not know about anyone else, but personally, damn right I’m angry at the school system which is why our family avoids it at all costs and that includes the Catholic school board which is funded per student. I guess that is the reason why they still wanted my son to remain in school. They were losing the funding in a small school. As well, boys especially, including all my boys have felt the brunt of the social justice antics displayed at school. It’s a girl’s world out there and boys are being oppressed by the femi-ninnies. Not to mention the sex education curriculum forced upon parents which advocates the teaching of lifestyles that are contrary to God. Yes, that is right, I will not teach my boys that the LGBT lifestyle is proper and decent, nor should anything sex even be a curriculum in school. But you know, good old Wynne wants all the little children to believe it is decent. Sorry, but personally speaking, I won’t sugar coat my words for anyone and our home is not a politically correct leftist home. Free speech!

There’s a darned good reason why the public school system is referred to as ROBOTFACTORIES…
Just Google ‘a history of attacks against homeschoolers’ – yeah, I know the owners/operators of Google, Facebook and YouTube are all a bunch of anti-Christian, anti democracy, anti-sovereign nation, fascist censors and Globalist scum but – there’s still a ton of info there…
This will turn out to be one of your more topics Sheila – in the long term…

For those parents who have the resources and the time to home school your children, do so! This is from a teacher who retired after 44 years teaching a variety of grades, subjects, etc. They were enjoyable years, but I never was blind to the deficiencies of the education system in meeting the needs of all students.

As pointed out, no system is going to suit everyone. It is not possible unless everyone is exactly the same, which we are not. Home schooling is NOT best (for every child). Public education is NOT best (for every child). Every child should have a quality education and no one teacher (or school), and no one parent (or parent group) is capable of providing that for every scenario. Obviously the people here are pro-home schooling and for (mostly) valid reasons. Their child did better in that environment. But you can bet that the homeschoolers who are lax and doing it for convenience are not on here commenting :-)
I have three children (now adults) with Aspergers. They all went through the public system except for one year of homeschooling one of them. One is a dependent adult and always will be and it has nothing to do with her schooling. School was neither positive nor negative for her because she just doesn’t care what goes on around her. That’s who she is. The second one loved school and thrived in the classroom. Sure she had issues – mean girls, bad teachers, group members who didn’t pull their weight, but that sounds pretty much like life. She is an award winning, fully functioning member of society with two children in a charter school. The youngest tolerated school, doing only what was necessary to get by until post secondary where he blossomed. The one year he was home-schooled worked well, but he chose to continue in public school. He was social, confident and capable and a leader in the classroom. He is now another award winning capable member of society. So for which one was public school the best? For which one would home schooling be the best? The point is that home schooling works for many children and public schooling works for many children. No one should be forced into someone else’s mold whether it be public or home schooling.
I must say that I find it very distressing that so much anger and hatred (deserved or not) is being aired here. If something doesn’t suit you find something better. There is no need to spew hatred and rhetoric to make your point that you don’t like something. You are free to dislike something. You are free to decide it doesn’t work for you. But what example are you setting for your children? That being mean-spirited, using foul language and not properly backing up arguments is the educated way to deal with issues? I would rather present a balanced, literate, intelligent unemotional argument and let people be educated in the issue. Not indoctrinated, because, yes, that is what you are doing.

I have been homeschooling my 12 year old son with Asperger’s for the last few years. This kid hated school. I would literally have to pull him off of light poles on the way to school practically every other day. He would have complete meltdowns. He could not handle being suffocated in a room full of 27 kids elbow to elbow, moving along with a bunch of programmed robots. If he became withdrawn at school I would get called to come and take him home, yet if I kept him at home they would call me into the school and complain he wasn’t in school. My God, these people couldn’t make up their mind. I finally got sick of the system and decided to remove him from that mess of a school system.

What many fail to understand with homeschooling is that it doesn’t take six or seven hours a day to teach kids like it does in mainstream school. It takes only a couple of hours of book work and sometimes there isn’t any book work at all. Children who are taught at home are very observant and will become very skilled in what they are good at doing. They tend to become a jack of all trades. For instance; when my son was in school his hands on skills were at the 20 percentile and this was with learning support. When he was tested again through a psychologist because of Asperger’s while taught at home those skills had increased to the 60 percentile in just one year. His reading and comprehension skills improved dramatically as well. My son, who they claimed at school had speech problems speaks like an articulate thirty year old now. When I was last called into a meeting with the principal, teacher and learning support who would have preferred my son go back to school, the principal told me that in all his years he has never seen children be a success, nor be able to integrate properly socially who are home schooled. Well, that principal was full of shit, and I let him know it with diplomacy. My son who is going to be 13 soon can, as only a few examples, tell you how to handle money and how to build equity, what is involved in the solar system, Christian theology, computer technology, how to maintain appliances, and not to mention his amazing cooking skills. This kid can cook like a chef. His next goal is to create homemade logic games using circuit boards.

Whenever I talk to educators, their primary argument against home schooling is that kids need to learn how to socialize with other children. But if this was such an important part of the education system, why are no marks given to social skills? Or why are there no courses on social skills? It turns out that when teachers talk about social skills, they are talking about indoctrination. Now can you imagine a student getting a failing mark on getting indoctrinated?

From all the parents that I have met home schooling often produces very smart young adults that contribute to society rather than take from from it.

Besides wouldn’t you rather have 27 students because some parents are willing to step up rather than 30 students in a class? Also in the long run home schooling costs the system less, we get less funding than a school gets.

MADELYNLAMONT I feel your struggles as a teacher. As very active parents in our childrens schooling (after school help including paying for Sylvan for both kids and individual help at the kitchen table at home). We realized that all the distractions you discribe made learning difficult for kids, and I trust many others kids as well. Maybe sometimes social settings are not ideal for learning…although you seem like one of the good ones based on your write up. I am a life long student taking post secondary classes continually and have realized that very little learning actually takes place in the classroom. The classroom is where a student ‘gets’ the information and is provided with instruction on how to retain the info. So if a teacher can’t present the info in a manner a child can understand…where is the value?

Home schooling allows a much better opportunity for kids to learn…granted the parent has to be just as commited and most home school parents are. Home Schooling has evolved way past the religious fanatics typically associated with historical home schooling. Home schooling when done right builds confidence, allows kids the ability to self teach by developing the childs quest to learn and allowing kids to pick what they want to learn and as a parent we know best how they learn so we can provide the proper learning tools.

As for social engineering that is an experiment our current NDP is going to try. Our current curriculum is not focused on promoting a specific government…I trust the NDP will try to socialize our school curriculum, there are no concrete exampmles of what this looks like because we have not yet seen in. my guess is a review of the North Korean curricu

@bravo Zulu
So what exactly are parents’ perceptions of teachers and how exactly do they treat children in the classroom? Which parents? Which children? If I have 27 students in my classroom, I could well have one or two with ASD, one student with IQ of 135 and one with IQ of 85, one with an anxiety disorder, one or two with behaviour issues, some who are kinesthetic learners and some who are visual learners, and any number of ELL students. Are every one of those student’s parents going to have the same perception of me as a teacher? Probably not. If I address the educational needs of the student with ASD, I am likely missing essentials in the educational needs of the ELL students. And if I am spending a good portion of my day making sure my behaviourally challenged students don’t hurt themselves, others, or the classroom, (and therefore making the anxiety disorder worse) I am most definitely missing the needs of the 135 IQ student! So who is going to think I am doing a good job? Who is going to think I am doing a bad job? Whose standards am I to meet?
I recently had a discussion with a Grade 5 class. We were discussing the issues surrounding the oil industry in Alberta. A balanced view was presented involving jobs, economy, environment, alternate energy sources. One of my comments was “many Albertans say that Justin Trudeau hates Alberta because of his policies surrounding the oil industry and how it has affected them” and then went on to have them discuss reasons for this sentiment. One parent complained that I told the students that Justin Trudeau hates Alberta. Hmmm… didn’t say that at all. So are that particular parent’s perceptions of me correct?
I strive to give students alternate ideas, challenge them to not repeat parental rhetoric but have reasons for what they are saying. They are challenged to dig in and go deeper on a subject or issue, not just brush the surface. I strive to teach my students to think! I want my students to be able to link ideas from one lesson to ideas from another lesson. I teach them to ask thoughtful questions and express themselves clearly and thoughtfully. I don’t praise what doesn’t deserve praise. And that gets me in trouble with those parents who think their children should be praised just for showing up, and loved by those parents who want their children to excel. Am I going to please everyone? I sure hope not! Because I want to be a thorn in the side of any parent who thinks that their child is to be put first above the welfare of all others, who think it is okay to do their child’s homework, who thinks they should be enabling their child to be a whiny bully who has to get their own way. Nope, definitely don’t want to please everyone!
Are there bad teachers? Most definitely. Are most teachers trying to do the best with the mish mash they find in their classroom? Most definitely!!
I would like to hear some reasonable, workable alternatives to schools. Reasonable, workable alternatives to whatever it is in the classroom that offends people. As I have given specifics on the reality of classrooms and how that affects people’s perceptions, I would love to hear how other posters would solve those problems, in specific detail. I would like to hear specific examples of “social engineering”, “government programming of…kids”, the “socialist agenda”. This sounds like a lot of rhetoric, but I am willing to hear concrete examples.
And last, but not least, Bravo Zulu was that there needs to be balance. There is a place for homeschooling and there is a place for public education. I have friends who home school, my beloved daughter-in-law was home schooled. But explain to me how the functionally illiterate parents who work full time jobs to make ends meet will adequately prepare their child(ren) for the real world? And where will the children who are neglected get fed (yes, we feed kids at school)? And where will the children of non-English speaking parents learn English so they can be functioning members of Canadian society? And the doctor who is stitching you up in the ER – how can she be homeschooling her kids at the same time? Public schools will not go away. Why not work together to make them better?
What makes me different? I will be out there fighting for YOUR right to home school your children. Yes, I will.

@ Madelyn Lamont commented 1 hour ago
Thanks to everyone who has bashed me as a teacher. I take my job seriously and it does NOT include Marxist indoctrination of children. I perceive my job to be educating children to be literate, thinking, discerning members of society. I totally agree that we should get rid of schools. Let all the illiterate, opinionated, parents whose main source of information is Facebook, educate their own children. Balance, people. Balance. Most of the comments here are as one-sided and opinionated as the government strategies.
______________________________________________________________
Madelyn

Your bitter response does not address the actual issues of teachers and their treatment of students in the class with regards to education – nor does it address the parents perceptions.

The “bashing” might not have been directed at you personally – however you did not come up with anything to change my mind.

In fact your last line essentially drives home the point that even you are not prepared to defend the real or perceived issues the public and parents have with schools and teachers as a whole. All it does is present one sided attack points (yours) back.

So – explain why you are different and why the average person does NOT have to find disgust in what is happening.

Otherwise – you are simply proving the point the writers made in the first place.

Thanks to everyone who has bashed me as a teacher. I take my job seriously and it does NOT include Marxist indoctrination of children. I perceive my job to be educating children to be literate, thinking, discerning members of society. I totally agree that we should get rid of schools. Let all the illiterate, opinionated, parents whose main source of information is Facebook, educate their own children. Balance, people. Balance. Most of the comments here are as one-sided and opinionated as the government strategies.

I went to Catholic school, switched over to Public school (long sad story), then I went to public high school, and then off to college. I could never figure out what was wrong. I was constantly bombarded for being different, I was basically told that I didn’t fit in, I was out of step with everyone else that was in step. It did take me a long time, but, I finally figured it out, I have a built in bullshit meter. I didn’t buy into the obvious social engineering, the indoctrination program, that program being perpetuated by the Socialist State run school system. When I did figure it out, I became very pissed off, I hated the idea that they were intentionally screwing with our minds (the children) .
So now, for you young parents, a word of caution, they ARE messing with the minds of your children, and that my friend, is why they are pushing their indoctrination, their so called education program.
Get your kids out, they want to mess with the minds of your children, and it is not for benevolent reasons, it suits their sick agendas’. STAND up to them, for your childrens’ sake, for those that can’t stand for themselves, for those that rely upon you to choose wisely. So choose wisely.

We are Alberta homeschoolers who have been dealing with this very issue this past week. The NDP promise that they would leave homeschooling alone was a blatant lie. They are making access to funding very difficult, with reams of bureaucracy going along with it. Thank you for exposing this, Sheila! What you have reported is accurate, and represents this excellent group of people so well.

My wife and I are parents to four daughters,3 in school (1 grad), in AB.
We had them in a Christian school before infighting at that school drove us out, then we decided to homeschool.
I don’t need to have the government programming my kids, and I don’t need the lack of morals in society being programmed into them either.
I’m sure that the NDP will rig whatever “research” they conduct, and use it as a reason to curb homeschooling, and to increase the demands for more unionized teachers.
This govt. will be a disaster, much like the NDP in SK before they woke up.
There are 4 people responsible for our current NDP govt: Redford, Prentice, Preston Manning, and niave Danielle Smith. Thanks… idiots!

When the government can control the media the next phase is education. Indoctrinate the young, feed them a diet of anti-establishment, a course on envy and how they are ripped off by those who create wealth, teach them that equal is fair, teach them the progressive fascist doctrine, how the government will take care of them cradle to grave and finally teach them not to think that the government will do that too. A steady diet of this and you end up with a NDP voter for life.

Why do we even NEED schools? I mean seriously, with todays technology there is no reason to be running buses up and down the road, heating schools and paying “teachers” to babysit kids. Which essentially what school is, a baby sitting service. I believe students after grade 6 can EASILY do assignments online and be self taught. If they are having a problem with something they can go onto a tutorial page and learn from that. Why do we need teachers pushing the socialist agenda down their throats each day. We all know someone who had problems in certain courses because the teacher couldn’t teach to that persons needs. Its time to do away with schools, buses, custodians, teachers aides and school secretaries. Home schooling ON LINE is the wave of the future.

Homeschooling is to be curbed. You can’t indoctrinate those who are not in the indoctrination classes.
How are our children to learn that their parents are killing them because of their conservative, anti-globalist, anti-ecofreak, freedom-loving attitudes?
Let’s turn the old Indian residential schools into new-age indoctrination centres for children of non-compliant parents.
Government should be in control of all children whose parents are not part of the socialist collective mindset.

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